Thursday, April 12, 2012

This morning I made Isabelle a really nice breakfast. Made her lunch. Got her on the school bus.

I made myself a breakfast... got an email from Maria. She said she was working from home and wished to visit me around noon.

My boss told me to Quit my Job. So I packed up my car. Load up my paints. And drove to try to find a location. It was my intention to paint in a park. But the roads in Hull are rather confusing to me. So I landed at this location in some wierd way.

So I parked the car.. and got ready to paint.

I had a great time painting... it was a pleasure working with the oil paint.

Hull. oil on canvas. 28 x 36 inches. April 12. 2012. Price:$1400.

Patrick John Mills

This painting is very textured and the photo of this painting is very lame.

I put the HULL painting in the back of the car. And kept painting.

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Here is my art studio. April 12. 2012.

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This painting is inspired by Maria. I was thinking about her while painting this work. This painting just happened. I was not really thinking. It just painted itself.

I was thinking about holding her. The landscape. The changing of seasons. Everyday is a new day.

Later that day Maria showed me some flowers. Wow. What a beautiful gift.

Somewhat crude and imperfect but essential for capturing the mood and essence of the ever-changing Canadian landscape...There was a short thaw season this year (one of my favourite painting seasons) so I’m somewhat sad to see it go and a tad leery of the wall of green to come.Here are a few recent colour oil sketches (10”x8” to 11”x14”) of early spring.I deliberately kept the small ones as loose and impressionistic as I could in order to retain the maximum feeling of the scene.My hope is to make these all into larger paintings. A 36x30 is already in progress.

The following two paintings are of a ‘volatile weather’ series that I was working on pitched in an attempt to portray the radically shifting weather patterns that we are experiencing more and more. They are on display at Patrick’s...

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Last night a friend of mine explaing that my career as an artist is finished. For years I painted tormented art work... and life was great. I was painting some really hardcore painful art. Siegfried explained, "Patrick, your screwed!" . I laughed. But he made a lot of sense. He talked about how Vincent van Gogh cut off his ear... = great artist.

Sad News... I am happy. Now I wake up and I am happy. In the morning I wake up to the sunshine. I feel sun light in my heart. I feel so happy. I dance in the shower, Sing in the car when I drive. I can not stop myself from breaking out with a big smile. Rather than think about death, divorce, cancer, illness, depression... Now I think about colour. My Soul. Freedom. So my future as an artist is dead. I am done.

Can an artist make good work if they are not tormented? Should I go buy a knife, start drinking, doing drugs, start thinking about faking my death. I might crash my car. Hanging out with crack heads, drinking massive amounts of beers. Piss my life away. All this happiness is not good for my art. I must suffer. I must contemplate suicide 24 / 7. Well more sad news. I have never smoked, never done drugs, never even tried coffee. I am a lame boring artist. No future.

So I have decided to tell everyone who has purchased my art, all those people that helped, encouraged me for the last 20 years. I am done. I am screwed. I am happy. I love life. I LOVE Art. And my life as a artist is in the gutter. Sorry. Thank you everyone for all your help.

To make matters worse. I have been selling paintings. This week alone I sold six medium to large paintings. I am not starving. Life is pretty good. I have food in my refrigerator, a house, gallery, studio... two legs, ten fingers, two ears, eyes, a heart that beats. Life is Great. I feel great. For the last six months I have been painting art work that is filled with joy, love, positive energy. So my future as an artist is done.

For a month I worked on this painting. I was doing a study of Jean - Honore Fragonard. Le Verrou

I was painting the layers and building up the spaces and forms. I was thinking about Howard Hodgkin and Frank Auerbach. It was Easter Sunday. Isabelle was at her Mother's house. I put chocolate Easter eggs and special gifts around the house. My little Easter Bunny come to collect the treats on Monday not Sunday.

I made a smoothy for breakfast. My mind was blowing into pigments. I could feel specific colours floating in my mind. While I was working in my studio everything started to flow. So I simply used the canvas I was working on (study of Jean - Honore Fragonard. Le Verrou)
as a foundation for Story Time.

I wanted to keep painting... But I had both doors to my studio open, the two small windows open, and the fan on maximum... The paint fumes were so intense I was getting high and my mind was spinning. I had to leave. Smile. Must sleep.